Drug-control Strategies Coming Fast And Furious

August 6, 1986|By KEN CUMMINS, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Congress and the White House, sensing that drug control suddenly has become a hot political issue, are racing to come up with new strategies in the nation`s war against drugs before the fall elections.

Reams of press releases and legislative proposals offering new solutions, or old solutions repackaged, have been spewing forth from congressional offices in the two weeks since House Speaker Thomas P. ``Tip`` O`Neill announced he wanted a bipartisan, omnibus anti-drug package ready for passage by early September.

President Reagan on Monday endorsed mandatory drug testing of federal workers in sensitive jobs as the first of several administration initiatives to be taken this month to match the flurry of activity on Capitol Hill.

For their part, Democrats in Congress are emphasizing law enforcement and drug treatment rather than drug testing. Their proposals call for spending billions of dollars on more judges, prosecutors and drug enforcement agents, more foreign aid to eradicate drug crops outside the United States and more extensive drug education and prevention programs in the schools.

``Any time you find all of a sudden that everybody is trying to jump on an issue that a lot of us have worked on for a long time, you know there`s a sense up here that the public is outraged,`` said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R- Fort Lauderdale.

According to a recent survey by national pollster Peter Hart, drugs now rank second behind the economy among voter concerns.

As many as 11 House committees currently have jurisdication over anti-drug bills, and O`Neill has given the chairmen of those committees only until next Tuesday to pass bills for inclusion in the multibillion-dollar omnibus drug package.

Today, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime is expected to pass legislation that would stiffen penalties for drug trafficking. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will act on other proposals aimed at getting drug- producing countries to do more to wipe out their illegal crops and avoid the need for direct American involvement in fighting drug dealers in Latin America, such as the recent military campaign in Bolivia.

On Thursday, the crime subcommittee is to consider several bills, including three introduced by Rep. Claude Pepper, D-Miami, to step up federal assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies and put more agents on the streets in South Florida.

The push by House Democrats is being led by Majority Leader James Wright, D- Texas, who returned from the Independence Day congressional recess last month alarmed over the results of a survey of his Fort Worth congressional district. The survey showed that 81 percent of his constituents thought drugs were a major problem in their schools and neighborhoods.

``Over the Easter recess and particularly over the July Fourth recess, members were getting heavy comments about drug abuse in their districts,`` said Rep. Dan Mica, D-Lake Worth.

Mica, Shaw and others attributed the sudden surge of nationwide concern about drugs to the much-publicized cocaine deaths of University of Maryland All- American basketball star Len Bias and professional football player Don Rogers. A third factor, they said, is the current cocaine rock, or ``crack,`` epidemic.

``We have been warning about the obviously life-threatening abilities of drugs for years, but nobody was listening,`` said Rep. Larry Smith, D- Hollywood, who is involved in the House effort to come up with a drug package for action next month. A bipartisan task force, headed by Wright, has been set up to decide which of the bills being approved by the House committees will be included in the final bill.

Although the task force is described as bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans on the panel have been holding separate meetings to decide what should be included in the final package.

Shaw was named to the task force to ensure that Republican initiatives get included and that his GOP colleagues get credit for their proposals. He expects the package to have bipartisan support, though it may be more costly than the White House would like.

Some estimates have put the pricetag on the House bill as high as $5 billion. The Reagan administration in June proposed spending $359 million next year to combat illegal drugs and prevent drug abuse.

While the House is preparing to spend billions on new equipment and added personnel for federal drug-fighting agencies, the White House has been considering less costly initiatives to curb the nation`s appetite for drugs, such as mandatory testing of federal workers.

Rep. Glenn English, chairman of a House law enforcement oversight committee, called the administration`s proposals ``a song and dance to make people think you`re doing something when you`re not doing much.``

``I think the difference is Congress has decided to have an honest, genuine, all-out war on drugs, and we`re looking at it in the same manner and with the same commitment as we have fought wars in the past,`` said English, D-Okla., whose own proposals, expected to be included in the final bill, will cost more than $1 billion.

``I think it is a high-priority item up here, and I`m not sure that that is the case down at the White House,`` he said.

Shaw conceded that the flurry of congressional activity ``is being generated by the public outrage, and that`s fine.``

``That`s what politics is, reacting to what the public is demanding,`` he said.``